Fur industry is in crisis as virus kills 15,000 mink in US
More than 15,000 mink in the US have died of the coronavirus since August, and authorities are keeping about a dozen farms under quarantine while they investigate the cases, state agriculture officials said.
Global health officials are eying the animals as a potential risk for people after Denmark last week embarked on a plan to eliminate all of its 17 million mink, saying a mutated coronavirus strain could move to humans and evade future Covid -19 vaccines.
The US states of Utah, Wisconsin and Michigan - where the virus has killed mink - said they do not plan to cull the animals. “We believe that quarantining affected mink farms in addition to implementing stringent biosecurity measures will succeed in controlling SARS-CoV-2 at these locations,” the US department of agriculture said.
In Denmark, the mass culling has dealt a body blow to the fur industry. Prime Minister Mette
Frederiksen has acknowledged that wiping out all breeding mink means the industry may not recover in Denmark, which is among the world’s biggest producers of the fur.
As prospects grow that mink farming could derail efforts to fight the pandemic, the future of Europe’s fur industry seems less certain than ever. Outside Denmark, other mink producing nations are watching closely as they figure out their next steps.
In Sweden, authorities say they have transmission of the virus among mink under control. But roughly a quarter of Swedish mink farms have had outbreaks, and the industry realises it can’t ignore the risks. Jorgen Martinsson, the head of Swedish Mink, said that “we must never hide from the difficult questions”.
Sputnik V vaccine 92% effective: Russia
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is 92% effective at protecting people from Covid -19 according to interim trial results, the country’s sovereign wealth fund said on Wednesday, as Moscow rushes to keep pace with Western drugmakers in the race for a shot.
Hong Kong and Singapore will start an air travel bubble later this month, allowing travellers from each city to visit the other without entering quarantine. The travellers must test negative for Covid-19 before they leave, when they arrive and before they return. The bubble starts November 22 with one flight a day to each city carrying 200 travellers each.
In the UK, the government is is planning a strategy to get hundreds of thousands of university students home for Christmas without sparking a new upsurge in coronavirus cases.
Scientists say students travelling from their hometowns to colleges in September was one of the drivers of the current wave of Covid-19 in the UK. The government said on Wednesday that it plans to stagger students’ departures at the end of term to avoid a mass exodus.